Who wants to be an ambassador?

[111prez]

Dapat nagdala sya ng laptop na may internet connection at lahat ng tanong i google nya.

o ipad o ipod para low profile

kahit iphone o nokia o blackberry puede din

[Monseratto]

Dinaan kasi sa KKK si ambassador wannabe...

An embarrassment | DUCKY PAREDES

SENATOR Sergio Osmeña III is right to advise President Aquino to withdraw the nomination of Domingo Lee as the Philippine ambassador to the People’s Republic of China (PROC).

Of course, Lee is not right for the position. For the China post, considering everything that may come up between the PROC and the Philippines in the months and years ahead, we must have an ambassador in China who is among our very best. Most definitely, Doming is not.

Says Osmeña: "I am appealing to the President to withdraw his nomination because it’s not fair to the Filipino people. It looks like personal friendship has overridden the national interest here and I think this is going a bit too far, and with all due respect, I hope that President Noynoy withdraws his nomination."

Who is Domingo Lee? He was a boyhood friend of Ninoy Aquino in Concepcion, Tarlac. Ninoy’s father was Domingo’s Ninong.

"Why do you feel Domingo Lee would be better than career [officials], or other ambassadors who have been working for so long?" Osmeña asked Lee during the last hearing of the Commission on Appointments. Doming replied that PNoy trusted him and knows his experience and volunteered that he was "friends" with high-ranking Chinese officials. This could well be true, of course, except that the Chinese that Doming is friends with are probably the wrong Chinese for his Beijing assignment.

During Cory’s presidency, Doming was our man in Taipei, the Republic of China, which fought the PROC for decades during the Cold War. True, there seems now to be a working détente between the two Chinas and they could well eventually unite; but putting a member of the Kuomintang Party (which most of the Chinese in thee Philippines are) may not be acceptable to the ruling Communist Party of the PRC.

Can someone who was our representative in Taiwan and is a lifetime member of the Kuomintang be an effective representative of the Filipino people in today’s China PRC) ?

Said Osmeña to Doming Lee: "I have no doubt he (PNoy) trusts your honesty, your integrity. What I’m trying to determine is the level of your competence, experience that you bring to public office, that you bring to the position of ambassadorship to Beijing.

"There are others who will be able to serve more ably in that position given their long and vast experience and training in the field of diplomacy."

Doming could not answer specific questions of the senator on the Spratlys and other issues that the Philippines has with China.

To the excuse of Doming Lee that he was trying his best to answer the senator’s questions, Osmeña said: "If that’s your best, I’ll be very scared to send you to Beijing. You don’t know what’s happening and you don’t seem interested in what’s happening."

Clearly, if the appointment of this Aquino family friend will not be withdrawn, his next sessions with the Commission on Appointments (CA) can only prove to be even more embarrassing. If the CA will do its job, it cannot allow Doming Lee to be our man in Beijing.

In rating the people who will represent our country, the best must be the one who will be our ambassador in Beijing. That relationship is probably our most critical. We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we will insist on someone who is recommended only by having been the boyhood pal of the President’s father.

Doming Lee clearly does not have the competence to represent the Philippines in what will be the most critical diplomatic post for us for this century! He will be an embarrassment. Could he even cause a war between us and them? If we have the wrong persons in critical postings, anything is possible.

[Monseratto]

he may not be a career diplomat but I think meron connection yan sa mga Chinese officials sa Beijing...or maraming kilala people in high places sa Chinese gov't

May kilala nga siyang mga Chinese Officials...sa Taiwan. KMT member siya at dating head ng MECO sa Taiwan.

[niky]

Like shadow says, nothing new... Hell... even in the US, some diplomatic assignments are a joke, and are used as political favors by whoever's in power.

But in this case, it's Ninoy's chance to prove that he really wants to change the way things work by... changing the way things work.